Virtue and Happiness Essay Example for Free

Virtue and Happiness EssayThere are so many different circumstances under which someone will coiffe an action that it can be confusing when to determine if an action is virtuous. There can be factors of ignorance or factors of pressure to do certain actions. Pressure, ignorance, or honor can have a various affects on a psyches choices about virtuous acts but when it causes his or her lesson actions to be compromised, indeed only certain situations can pressure or ignorance be an excuse.Courage is a virtue that can be determined by choices that a person can make. A person that only does an act because he sees some personal gain from the act such as saving a child from a fire may non have committed a virtuous act because of the motive behind it such as fame or honor. However, a person who has done a virtuous act can still be honored and glorified with the act still being virtuous.If that person were held at gunpoint and told to save the child, if he performed the act it wou ld be hard to determine if it was truly virtuous. It does not mean that it was not a virtuous act, but it would be hard to tell what the motive was behind the action. Near the end of Nicomachean Ethics, Aristotle talks about the range of peoples characteristics. Aristotle states that the of the moral states to be avoided there are three kinds-vice, incontinence, brutishness. (Aristotle. varlet 157.)Aristotle states that there are the opposites of these which are virtue, continence, and the super-virtue. Vice would mean the person knows what they are doing is wrong but does it regardless. Incontinence would mean that a person has an incorrect moral that they act on, causing them to act in a manner that was not virtuous. And brutishness would be a person acting purely on urge and having no emotional or rational or even irrational thought behind what they are doing. It would be primarily animalistic in nature.Looking at Aristotles view on the best life or a happy life, it can be seen that virtue is what he really believes will atomic number 82 to a good life. The fact that there are many different ways in which someone may be virtuous or not shows that acting on desire can be right as well as wrong. And many different situations can determine this right or wrong act. Aristotle states that one must fulfill the desire for happiness by virtuous means and that our rational mind can lead us out-of-door from the correct way of fulfilling our ultimate desire.